Bookish Brew: Inspired by Lissa Price

Published January 8, 2014

In December I first blogged about heightening your reading experience by concocting a â€œbookish brew,â€ a beverage inspired by the book that you’re into at the moment. Today, in honor of yesterday’s release of Lissa Price’sEnders, I thought I’d share a drink recipe that I created in the spirit of her Starters (2013 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers), the first book in this duology and one of my favorite reads.

In Starters, sixteen-year-old Callie lives in a futuristic Los Angeles in which everyone is either under age 20 or over age 60. A fatal spore illness has killed all those in the age range in between. Callie, her ill young brother Tyler, and her friend Michael are attempting to survive together by living in abandoned buildings, trying to avoid being sent to a prison-like institution for parentless children. Desperate to help Tyler, Callie decides to sign up to rent her body out to seniors who will take control of her mind, living as youth again for a short period. In return Callie is promised a very large sum of money. During Callie’s third â€œrental,â€ however, she experiences periods where she is back in her own mind, learning that her current renter may plan to use her body to kill someone. This initiates an action-packed series of events in which Callie learns more about her renter’s motivations and the plans of Prime Destinations, the company which she’s allowed to loan out her body. Fans of the Hunger Games trilogy will love Starters, another great dystopian read about a strong and compassionate female lead taking a stand in a society divided between haves and have-nots.

Price has also written some eBook-only short stories to accompany the duology. These are Portrait of a Starter (told from Michael’s point of view), Portrait of a Donor (Briona’s point of view) and Portrait of a Marshal. They’re available through online retailers and some libraries’ online collections.

As I mentioned in my December post, I generally think that the best bookish brews are inspired by the simplest elements: a book’s setting and main character, and the ingredients that these suggest. With Starters, however, I felt that the right drink was even more obvious than this, especially for a sweets lover like me. I felt compelled to create my own liquid version of the â€œSupertruffle,â€ the supremely decadent treat consumed by the rich in the novel. Inspired by the excess of the “Supertruffle” if not its exact ingredients, I do hope that the Supertruffle Sipper takes over your powers of reasoning for a moment, much like Prime Destinations takes over Callie’s mind… yet in a much more delicious and non-sinister way of course.

The Supertruffle Sipper

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk (or 2% if you must)

Small block of chocolate

2 tbsp. of the richest cocoa powder that you can find

1/4 cup marshmallow crÃ¨me

1-2 tbsp. peanut butter or other nut butter

whipped cream

Preparation

On the stove top, bring milk to a simmer.

Meanwhile, use a vegetable peeler to shave thin slivers from the chocolate block.

Once the milk is simmering, pour it into a mug and mix in cocoa powder.

Add marshmallow crÃ¨me and nut butter and whisk everything together.

Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Enjoy!

More book-inspired beverages to come! In the meantime, have you concocted any bookish brews that you’d like to share with us and your fellow Hub readers?